As he set the second lamp down he became aware of a subtle interesting smell, and memory took back at once to Yasmini's room in the Chandni Chowk in Delhi where he had smelled it first. It was the peculiar scent he had been told was Yasmini's own--a blend of scents, like a chord of music, in which musk did not predominate. He took three strides and touched the curtains, discovering now for the first time that there were two of them, divided down the middle. They were about eight feet high, and each three feet wide, of leather, and though they looked old as the “Hills” themselves the leather was supple as good cloth. They had once been decorated with figures in gold leaf, but only a little patch of yellow here and there remained to hint at faded glories. He decided to remember his manners again, and at least to make opportunity for an invitation. “Kurram Khan hai!” he announced, forgetting the echo. But the echo was the only answer. It cackled at him, cracking back and forth down the cavern to die with a groan in illimitable darkness. “Kurram-urram-urram-urram-urram-ahn-hai! Urram-urram-urram-urram-ahn-hai! Urram-urram-urram-ah-hh-ough-ah!” There was no sound beyond the curtains. No answer. Only he thought the strange scent grew stronger. He decided to go forward. With his heart in his mouth he parted the curtains with both hands, startled by the sharp jangle of metal rings on a rod. So he stood, with arms outstretched, staring--staring--staring--with eyes skilled swiftly to take in details, but with a brain that tried to explain--formed a hundred wild suggestions--and then reeled. He was face to face with the unexplainable--the riddle of Khinjan Caves. Chapter XIII Grand was thy goal! Thy vision new! Ave, Caesar! Conquest? Ends of Earth thy view? Ave, Caesar! To sow--to reap--to play God's game? How many Caesars did that same Until the great, grim Reaper came! Who ploughs with death shall garner rue, And under all skies is nothing new. Vale, Caesar! Telling the story afterward King never made any effort to describe his own sensations. It was surely enough to state what he saw, after a breathless climb among the rat-runs of a mountain with his imagination fired already by what had happened in the Cavern of Earth's Drink. The leather curtains slipped through his fingers and closed behind him with the clash of rings on a rod. But he was beyond being startled. He was not really sure he was in the world. He knew he was awake, and he knew he was glad he had left his shoes outside. But he was not certain whether it was the twentieth century, or fifty-five B. C., or earlier yet; or whether time had ceased. Very vividly in that minute there flashed before his mind Mark Twain's suggestion of the Transposition of Epochs.